This audiobook is a collection of essays on topics concerning the existence of humankind on Earth to aid listeners in personal reflection and transformation. Essay authors have been chosen to write personal essays on areas of their expertise or interest.

It is broken into four sections: self, humankind, religion, and Earth. It is very personal and subjective, and it challenges listeners to do their own deep dive to come up with their own conclusions on the various topics. It is not a political audiobook, nor should it reviewed from a political lens. How did we get here? Why are we here? What are we/am I doing here? Where are we going from here? These are existential questions worth exploring. They all have to do with our existence on Earth.

Will we definitively answer them for you? No. That’s impossible - for many reasons. But we will try to help you answer them for yourself.

How we got here, why we are here, and where are we going from here is merely conjecture.

Atheists (those who do not believe in God) will say that our being here is merely the confluence of chance, matter, and time. Theists (those who believe in God) believe that we are human manifestations in the image of God, the creator of all things. Their differences of opinion are a matter of debate for another forum, so we will leave those questions for scientists, philosophers, and religious scholars. We will focus on what we are doing here, because that is the most answerable by using provable, factual data.

We have a pretty good idea of what we are doing here, because our collective human actions have historical imprints and attendant consequences. Those actions, over time, also result in verifiable change: change to humankind, the planet Earth, and all living things on Earth.

Those changes are often referred to as evolution. But, contrary to popular belief, human evolution is not on a vertical line of continual improvement, since there are periods of growth and decline over millions of years.

While scientific evolution is incremental (built upon previous knowledge), human evolution is not, because the human experience is an ongoing experiment.

Maybe the better question is: Why are we doing what we are doing here?

Another way to phrase that is asking the question: What is our collective purpose?

Then, diving deeper, we occasionally ask ourselves about our individual purpose.

Our audiobook is, therefore, a self-Socratic endeavor - an exploration of ourselves by questioning the choices we make in our lives.

A byproduct of ”what is mankind doing and why"? is “what are the impacts of what we are doing here on Earth"?

We will be discussing both - our individual purpose and impact and our collective, societal purpose and impact.

These questions led to the idea for this audiobook, which I am writing for my kids and their kids:

• Never stop exploring
• Always be curious
• Seek adventure
• Work together

The essays in this audiobook will discuss those issues and components of human nature, behavior, relationships, emotions, motivations, and contexts.